Navigators called it the 'Mirage City' of Sheba while others branded it the 'Floating Dump' of Sheba. It all depended on what twisted reality you were referring to for Sheba possessed two faces for one big lie.
In the physical plane and the infinite vacuum of space, this hellish station looked like a conglomerate of rusted metal and whitened plastic clumsily oscillating on Metis's orbit. This foul grim sphere was an amalgam of old TMC warships' carcasses, abandoned pirate cruisers and stranded G.T.C. supercargos held together by blistered welds similar to infected scars covered with a thick deposit of irradiated cosmic dust from Jupiter's magnetosphere.
But the inhabitants of this nearly invisible orbital barge as old as Solaris's conquest didn't live there for the comfort of Sheba's public dumps-gardens and bankrupted glow-peras. The Mirage City had a much better and almost unique asset: its distinctive intraweb servers out of reach from Mars, the Moon, and the shady megacorporations. Over the years, this island of silicon freedom attracted Solaris's top hackers as Sheba was the Tortuga of the webrunners; the El Dorado of rogue AIs; the artificial paradise of the infamous Data Brokers' Guild and data thieves.
"This is the Swift-0 Kisugi," I announced. "I require a private shed near Joel's Garage. My coating needs a brush stroke. Over."
In response, the radio sizzled. I had to readjust my helmet on my silver hair to hear the control AI's computer-generated female voice: "Copy that, Kisugi. Could you re-enter the verification code, please?"
The red telltale over the round radar screen blinked twice. I was being target-locked by the closest orbiting drones. These dark octahedrons with glowing blue eyes on each face were following me since I entered Sheba's AO. "Is there a problem?" I asked, glancing at one of them as it flew over my cockpit.
"Negative. Just a random double-check, Kisugi."
The computer's keyboard slid from my right. With the twenty-six characters quickly entered again, I waited for the space traffic controller to come back to me while adjusting the seat's safety straps. Worn down to the metal reinforcements, they too had to be repaired once on the station.
"Thank you, Kisugi. Please, proceed to Dock #15. Cell 143-c, Joel's Kingston Garage. We apologize for the inconvenience. Out."
Laser-guided, my Swift was slowly approaching Sheba's equator under the warm gaze of Jupiter. Hot steam came out of the thrusters and the Kisugi positioned herself between the mechanical clamps. A minute later, the cockpit's lights turned green as the artificial gravity grabbed me, and I could open the glass canopy. My holosuit activated to copy the features of any runner that would roam Sheba's ominous walkways, I left the hangar after giving some instructions to an on-duty mechanic; a large cyborg with a greasy mullet and a cigarette over the ear.
Joël's Garage had the advantage of being on the same lift line as my destination: the Laser Roller Palace on Deck #4. I was the only one in the elevator that picked me up, except for an old Rasta from Marley's cyborg gang and his ZX Spectrum foldable computer. "Sup', man," the Rasta mumbled with a smile while casually 'redirecting' millions of dollar-credits from a Martian bank.
"How are you doing?" I simply responded. We could barely see each other because of the smoke emanating from his wide pungent reefer. Pressing the right button despite the glowing Ge'ez script was pure luck.
Once on Deck #4 after a short but jolting ride, I took the scenic route through an abandoned mall before arriving in front of the carved brass gates of the establishment I was looking for. I thought I had the wrong address in mind as the blue neon sign of the rink had been supplanted by a loose rusted board. The lobby's lockers have been awkwardly replaced with legal methamphetamine vending machines surrounded by piles of blue trash bags. Finally, the old track was nothing more than a maze of dark and dusty booths all occupied by pimply-faced teenagers, an old cyber-dive helmet grafted to their skull.
Even the music had changed. The usual disco hits had let room to some creaky Johnny Cash. I'll remember you came from the old Wurlitzer jukebox near the toilets; only remnant of the place's former glory.
"For someone with almost a billion over her scalp, you seem very confident roaming around a pirates' den like Sheba!" someone said with a raspy voice.
Beyond hanging cables and sizzling screens stood a makeshift bar built with stacked beer drums and the sheet metal wing of a pirate robodrone. Leaning between two empty moonshine's bricks, back to a mirror covered with flamboyant graffiti, a Freak-fennec had plunged her glowing gray eyes into mine. Yasmine "Shame" Payette was the name of this mutant with a sand-colored fur decorated with as many cybernetic implants as the entire Marley gang brought together. The old owner of the rink had been able to improve herself with elegance as the rainbow-colored hues of her metallic additions were arranged to follow the lines of her skeleton like a Dia de Muertos costume. In the darkness that reigned, all shone between small impulses.
"Sheba may be the only station in the whole system where I could use my real name," I joked as I got closer, pushing aside the pudding cups and Totino's wrappings piling-up on the ground.
I sat at the bar. The cobbled stool nearly collapsed under my weight. In front of me, the odd mirror reflected my black steel face and my silver hair. Was this how Shame recognized me? Did the holosuit no longer work? Yet a quick glance at the metallic coating on my arms taught me otherwise.
"Take it off!" she ordered me, visibly amused by her gadget. "It's hot enough in there and you'll curdle the wax on my floor."
I proceeded after a brief look back. All the teenagers were far too absorbed in their cubicles playing or diving into the web to pay attention to us. "What happened to the Laser Roller Palace?" I then asked. "You're back into the data business?"
Shame let out a laugh before turning to the glass rack next to the peanuts' 3D printer right in front of the mirror. "You crazy? Skates and disco ain't trending on Sheba anymore so I came up with this wretched nursery business."
"What are these runners in short pants up to?" I asked, glancing at the stations behind me.
Someone swore in a cubicle. A rancid smell of perspiration invaded my nostrils when its author hurried out to go to the toilet, a urinary catheter and his pierced plastic bag between his hands.
"A Monster&Mazes IV's speedrun or something like that," Shame replied. "I'd rather see them struggle on a stupid game than organize dick-measuring contests and overheating a TMC spy satellite again. But I assume you ain't here to talk 'bout video games!"
"Yes. And for your information, I prefer the 'satanic' tabletop version."
I noticed the stern look that Shame threw at me. She grew impatient to hear the real reason for my visit and making a cyber-Freak mad was never recommended. "Shouldn't you be celebrating Xiao's true retirement?" she growled as the Cognac's brick in her hand was squeaking under the pressure of her frustration. "I heard you were involved."
In Solaris, gossips traveled faster than my Swift. As soon as the FID of the godfather was validated by Lee, the Alliance immediately communicated about it. The whole system discovered that the Lost Triads had sunk at the bottom of Europa. But they didn't know at what price…
"I'm not the one who zeroed Xiao. I just snatched what I needed on his still-warm corpse."
Shame opened her eyes wide. Her mind forgot the bottle. She spilled alcohol all around the two glasses that she had clumsily dusted off. "Tu es sérieux? Who killed that bastard?" the Freak asked as her Pied-Noir's accent resurged. "That kid you're screwing?"
I grabbed the cup that she handed me before putting it down. There was really nothing to celebrate about my excursion on Europa. "Please, show a little respect. She's a friend."
"Her prolix feline too?"
"The French cat flies a United Nations Swallow. And very well."
Shame, then two shots ahead despite the morning hour, let out a laugh and a few drops of alcohol flowed on her chin. Placing my hand on her paw still anchored to the Cognac bottle, I made her understand that I needed her and all her faculties for what I was about to ask.
"What?" she growled again, throwing the emptied brick down the end of the bar after brushing my hand aside. It loudly smashed against the collection of spirits which took the dust.
"I'm looking for information…"
"Bite me!" the Freak snarled. "The Guild and their bullshits already cost me both my legs and my pretty ass!" She then pointed at her pair of mechanical prostheses before turning around to show me her long furry tail. "This fab butt survived the Red Uprising and has ten years of service in the Metal Rain. Bismuth-Ball and his caryatid can sink their stinky mission deep into a cosmodon's arse!"
The former lieutenant of the Lunar special forces and veteran of the Guild has been off Mancéphalius's radar for years. And it was rather fitting as I stated it to her right after: "The job is personal. Neither Oberon nor the others are involved."
Shamed opened her eyes wide. "Personnel? What a fry! Zéphyr goes rogue! What could the Lost Triads be concealing in their data core so the Data Maiden would hide it from the almighty Guild?"
"Nothing worth my time. I'm letting Mancéphalius deal with the civil war on Saturn nonsense for now."
Shame turned around and handed the glasses to the small robot in charge of disinfecting them. I saw her laughing in the mirror. "It's related to the Kitty, ain't it?" she asked, her eyes filled with anger but covered with a veil of sadness. "That bunny. She must be worth it, I suppose. She ain't no damn Freak."
I was pretty sure Shame had already conducted her own investigation. She had always been as clairvoyant as overly jealous. "Yes, it's about the Kitty. But Shame, I—"
"Relax, girl. I'm just an old broken mutant who loves messing with you!" she laughed even though the quivering tone of her voice betrayed her feelings. "So? What do you want? It's not like you already owe me for the Danaë's heist!" Shame immediately started cleaning the dust from the mirror with her sleeves. Her fennec DNA kept her from being still for more than five seconds.
"I'd like to know where the Kitty comes from."
"Didn't y—" She stopped as a young boy with a helmet on his forehead approached the bar to ask for a Capri Sun. She threw him an ice-covered aluminum pouch alongside several insults in French. Shame knew how to treat her clientele with love and care. "The ship is registered on Titan, right?" she resumed like nothing happened.
"Yes but… Al—Ali's a Niku."
Shame raised her eyebrows. "What are you—a Niku? The meat-dolls from post-war top Japanese R&D?"
I sighed before adding: "Cursed souls devoted being the Heavenly Ones's living spare parts. Enhanced tank-grown clones—"
"—gruesomely sacrificed where they weren't violently abused for the Gods' pleasure. Yeah, don't tell me a story I helped writing," my friend cut me off. "So, you're telling me this Ali escaped from a factory? From the Moon or an old underground Triads's facility? I know they were in the business too in the past—but these bastards grew organs on pigs, not on clones. Was that the reason you guys raided their hideout on Europa, though?"
"I don't know. I learned all that—her past—during the fight…"
Memories from the Red Fortress shuffled into my organic brain. I could smell the blood and hear Ali screaming. It was another nightmare that I was unable to erase.
"Hell of a story you got yourself into," Shame said. When she took my hands, I realized they were shaking.
"A bad habit."
The Freak-fennec gave a bitter laugh as she stepped back. "Which Metacaste did this Ali belong to? The old Ankh? The Awen? Don't fucking tell me it was the Omega…"
"This is what I'd like to know," I chuckled nervously.
"Wow… That's totally fucked up, Zéphyr!"
Yes. And this is why I had to know. "Do you still have contacts in the Rings?"
I saw Shame hesitate before scratching one of her golden earrings. "Today, my little sister's more focused on Mars. On the Black-Haven." The cloud of dust raised by her household made her cough before an implant flashed on her cheeks. "But Carole used to play around Saturn and kept some daemons on the local intraweb."
That was the answer I was afraid of. Yet, at the same time, the most reassuring. I had only met Carole once in the past. She was certainly one of this generation's most gifted hackers. But Shame's relative was as stable as uranium ore in a microwave.
"Where is she now?" I asked.
"Carole ain't the social type. She must be in her Batcave, binge-watching Wiseguy with her annoying cats." I saw Shame's reflection as her multicolored facial implants flashed even harder. She pursued: "But do me a solid and promise me that nothing will happen to my little sister. If the Arch-Empress Hera—the Caste Omega—I mean they're all dead but—the Moon…"
"I'm not going to bother Carole with the details. I just need some data of hers. I will never put her in direct danger. My word on that."
But her family wasn't Shame's only concern: "And that girl from The Rings. Is she okay with you ferreting around?"
"Depends on what I stumble over. Probably troubles, though."
I played poorly as my answer made the Freak-fennec furious. "You said she was your friend! You shouldn't do this!" she warned me. "What are you trying to accomplish here by spying on her, Hermes?"
I startled. That was below the belt, ever for her. "Don't call m—"
"Cut your crap, Zéphyr-boy! Fooling around the past ain't gonna change anything for this girl. Nor you. Is this about fucking remorse again? Can't you move on?"
Move on? If the Metacaste Omega was accountable… If Ali was one of Queen Hera's meat-dolls… If she learned who I am…
"No way this can't fucking backfire, damn it! Let it go!" Shame pursued, furious as all her implants turned red. "You're not responsible for every Lunapolis's monstrosities, Arch-Prince!"